


you are surrounding all my surroundings

by ineachandeveryway



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, M/M, Mutual Pining, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 20:43:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7656010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineachandeveryway/pseuds/ineachandeveryway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Takashi Shirogane." (So she <i>was</i> right about the second part.) "My friends call me Shiro." </p><p>"And I'm a friend?" she questions, only a touch sarcastic. Her host treads a thin line currently. He's jolted her into surprise at the mere sound of his voice and made it clear that his taste in people is questionable, if not lacking. There may be no coming back from what he's about to answer next. </p><p>Allura wonders if he's aware. </p><p> </p><p>  <b>—or, Shiro/Allura + Space!College AU.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	you are surrounding all my surroundings

**Author's Note:**

> I recently read the **Addicted** series by Krista and Becca Ritchie, so the mature tone held throughout this fic is largely influenced by that of this ten-part novel series. (It's a wonderful read, with absolutely lovely characters and very sappy but equally poetic romances. I highly recommend it.) 
> 
> There will be three over-arching _chapters_ in this fic: fall semester, spring semester, and summer break. Titles and _chapter_ footnotes are heavily inspired by Rose and Connor Cobalt, who form one of three main couples in the aforementioned novel series. Within each chapter, there will be multiple _parts_ (three to four), which are the chapters you will see in the index AO3 provides. (It's a little like sbj's **More Than Human** , which, if you haven't read it, I highly recommend. It's the most stunning piece of fanfiction I've ever read.)
> 
> Also, I've taken some liberty in utilizing canon given Allura's backstory, so not all of it is different from what we've seen in the show.

**Chapter One—Senior Fall Semester, Part One**

.

.

.

"I hate your smile."

"You love my smile. That's why it annoys you, darling."

—Rose Calloway & Connor Cobalt, _Kiss the Sky_

_._

.

.

Why Allura of Altea ever agrees to attend a college party is nearly unfathomable to her; how her caretaker, Coran, somehow manages to convince her, even more so. 

Late Friday night finds her skimming the contents of her closet, a grumble hovering on her lips as she looks for the right clothes to wear. The Garrison, an interplanetary school known only to accept the finest percentage of life forms that each planet in the Milky Way has to offer, is rare to house the venue for college parties. It stands as a pinnacle among pinnacles, brings to mind perfectly ironed uniforms and exceptionally gifted students. The fact that a party is being hosted there at all is eye-catching, if not jaw-dropping. 

Which is why, at Coran's insistence, Allura finds herself pulling on a white tank top and a pair of ratty shorts. The staple of the event, to her annoyance, is a highlighter aspect, which means that only the worst of her wardrobe is allowed to come out tonight. She fishes around for a hairband in her dresser and draws her silvery locks into a messy bun, effort abandoned at the thought of how dreadful she's bound to end up looking anyway. 

A knock sounds at the door. "Ready, Princess?" asks Coran, a smile tugging at his lips. He's been babbling about the party since early morning, and if Allura didn't know any better, she might think that he actually wanted her out of the house. 

But the truth? It paints a clearer picture. 

"I rarely get a peek at you as it is, Princess!" he told her Monday, after first receiving news of the party. "What's the rest of the galaxy going to say to an heiress they can't find?" 

Allura immediately wanted to counter the statement, but there was a hard truth to Coran's words. As the heir to a nearly inexistent race and the only hope for its survival, there are more important things she has to be doing than just studying and poring over her father's books, even if they are the key to some larger conspiracy. Mingling with the heirs to other planetary empires and making her presence known among them—those are two prominent ones. 

And this party, according to Coran, is where she's supposed to find her start. 

"To a moderate degree," she answers, lacing her boots. The clock is about to strike nine fifteen; the party started at nine. 

"Good enough. Oh, and I'm not sure if I said this already, but—" 

"You did, five times." Allura isn't to return to the castle before eleven thirty. For two hours, she has to make herself at home in a hellhole of hormones. The thought of it really can't disgust her any more than it already has, but then again, someone at the party is bound to find a way. 

"Off with you, then!" Coran feigns escorting his charge to the castle's air lock, his arm never leaving her back while they walk and his hands tending to her spacesuit once there.

The Garrison (Institute for Interplanetary Acumen) hovers on the outskirts of the Milky Way and is orbited by hundreds of ships and satellites, one of which is supposed to be the stage for the hormonal squall of the century. While settling into her pod, Allura fishes a piece of paper out of her pocket and scrutinizes the venue scribbled onto it. 

 _Shirogane Satellite._ The name is unfamiliar, which can mean only one thing. 

Pilots. 

To almost any newcomer's surprise, the most entitled fraction of the Garrison's student body is not its amalgam of planetary successors, but the members of its prestigious piloting program. The Meridian Hangar is a training ground where nobodies are molded into somebodies, where name hardly compares to abundance of skill. It's this fact that instills so much confidence into the program's students—they attend the Institute not because they have to, but because they  _can._

"Quiznak," Allura mutters. 

According to her systems, the Shirogane Satellite rests in the northeastern sector of the Garrison's orbit, a direct diagonal from her castle's southwestern location. Coran gives her the normal rundown on in-flight precautions before securing the pod's roof and tapping encouragingly on the glass. His hopes for her are high, every minute he's spent at her side in the last year proof of that.

As Allura pulls out of the airlock, she considers trying to mingle for longer than the required two hours. It would certainly make Coran happy, and besides, there's always the small chance that she lasts long enough to make a friend. A pilot, perhaps. They can't really be as conceited as she is wary, after all. 

Or so she leads herself to believe, until she docks at the satellite's port. Though Altean tech is indubitably of a finer quality than most anything she's seen in this millennium, Allura can't deny the shame every other pod in the port puts to her small ship. The finishing gloss and sleek shape of each pod that her eyes pass over is indicative of a wealth that only an institution like the Garrison can sustain. 

Because the money that so many planetary dynasties pour into the school isn't used to create new programs or elevate the quality of classes and activities. (The need for either of these things is nonexistent.)

It's used to propel fighter and cargo pilots alike into a profession that will eventually drive them back into the hands of their benefactors. It's used, for lack of a better word, as an insurance policy. 

And the tech before Allura's eyes is very proof that it works. 

"The party is this way," a voice calls, and she turns her head. There's no body to put to the soft but cemented sound, and that begs Allura's curiosity a little more than the line of pods in front of her. She makes one last check of her docking equipment, then follows the voice to a part of the hangar that steadily narrows into a hallway. A door nestled at its end stands ajar, and who Allura can only assume to be her host stands perched on the threshold. 

He's taller than her by maybe two hands' width, but the wide girth of his shoulders coupled with the added height give an overall impression of 'bigger'. Allura's eyes stray to a lock of white hair that falls between Shirogane's (?) eyes. A brash show of independence, perhaps, the tuft sits in deep contrast to the surrounding blackish-grey.

"What's your name?" the boy asks. Allura jolts, then narrows her eyes upon catching his in a once-over. 

"Allura of Altea." 

The word—Altean—must strike him, because he surveys her again, only this time his eyes linger on the more distinguishing parts of her, like her pointed ears or blindingly white hair. "The last of your kind," he murmurs absently. It isn't posed as a question, but Allura's lips tic, and she responds nonetheless, "Not quite." 

His eyes fall to hers. "Oh?" Shirogane asks, wonder cresting the word. Allura finds it hard not to mirror the smile that curls his lips, but annoyance keeps her stubborn. 

"I can leave if you plan on keeping me here for the rest of the night," she says, secretly hoping now that he'll take her up on the offer. Coran can't tell her to go back to a party whose host doesn't want her there in the first place. And the pods in the hangar have turned her off so much, already. 

But Shirogane laughs gently and touches a hand to his neck. "No, no, please, come in." 

As the door falls away behind him, Allura gets a better look at the scene: a towering hall blanketed in semi-darkness, if not for the streaks of vibrant, neon highlighter that mar its occupants' clothes and skin. The Garrison's student body pulses wildly to a foreign beat, hair flying high and hips dipping low. It's practically an antithesis to what one normally sees within the school's orbit. Allura can't help but cringe at every turn. 

Her host ends up leading her to a bar that sits somewhere in the middle of the room, along the right edge. He motions for two drinks, then startles as a particularly drunken pair of students latches onto his arm and paints his chest over with highlighter.

"Friends of yours?" Allura asks, unable to conceal a grin. The smaller of the two waves his glasses in the air and cackles with glee, while the taller brunet throws an arm around his sidekick's neck and forges onward into the crowd. 

"Some underclassmen I know," Shirogane answers. 

Her grin morphs into a frown. "You have horrible taste." 

"I apologize," he replies, and a shrug touches his shoulders. He turns away from her for the moment, starting up a conversation with one of the barista's while waiting for their drinks. 

Upon closer inspection, Allura finds muscles that cut into hard lines along the length of the pilot's arms. There are streaks of every imaginable neon color that cross over from his shirt onto his skin, but he hardly seems to mind. In fact, Shirogane seems at peace within this setting, his (drunken) friends at arm's reach and the usually strict atmosphere of the Garrison cast aside. 

Maybe conceit needs a place to go sometimes, and a highlighter party is it. Allura can't think of any other explanation for such mellow behavior. 

"I still haven't introduced myself," Shirogane says suddenly, two drinks now in hand. Allura jumps once more at the sound of his voice, but settles when he slips a familiar brew—not nunvill, but something similar—into her hands. 

"Takashi Shirogane." (So she _was_ right about the second part.) "My friends call me Shiro." 

"And I'm a friend?" she questions, only a touch sarcastic. Her host treads a thin line currently. He's jolted her into surprise at the mere sound of his voice and made it clear that his taste in people is questionable, if not lacking. There may be no coming back from what he's about to answer next. 

Allura wonders if he's aware. 

A large swig of her drink sloshes noisily down her throat, and it's right then that Shiro chooses to say, "I'd certainly like you to be."

No word can describe what happens next. Or maybe one can, and she's so incredibly thrown off that it won't come to mind. All Allura knows is that the breath is briefly taken from her as alcohol meets the wrong pipe, and a mangled combination of choking and gasping and laughing escapes instead. 

Shiro immediately abandons his drink for the small of her back— _"hey"_ —hunching her over his arm and pounding one palm against her spine. A few spurts of the brew trickle out of her mouth, but no vomit deigns to follow, and Allura soon has herself calm, composed, and (most importantly) out of her host's arms. The easygoing pilot stares at her in bewilderment, unsure of how to proceed. 

It's convenient that a pilot with a basket of highlighters passes her by (else Allura might have resorted to using her drink instead). Before Shiro can utter another word, she's retrieved and uncapped three, then dragged them down his face, from forehead to chin to dip in collarbone. The bar has lulled to a stunned silence around her, all eyes pinned to the pink, yellow, and orange streaked over the host's cheeks. 

Shiro opens his mouth as if to say something, but Allura beats him to it. "Thank you for the offer," she deadpans. "I'm flattered." 

And then the Princess of Altea turns into the crowd, three highlighters at her fingertips and one boy at her back. He says her name into a rancorous void, but she pays no mind to it, attention now turned to the neon havoc she can wreak. 

It never crosses her mind that she might see him again. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment, review, or some sign that you're interested to read more of this fic!


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